The new musical collaboration between pop legend Billy Joel and choreographer Twyla Tharp now has a title - Movin' Out - and a Broadway theatre, the Richard Rodgers. The show, which will have an out-of-town tryout in Chicago before hitting Broadway, will open on Broadway on Oct. 24. The Chicago run, at the Shubert Theatre, will be June 25-Aug. 4.

I am really excited about this show!! I am a huge fan; I grew up on Billy Joel music and love Twyla's stuff. The story/book of this show sounds oddly like the movie "The Deer Hunter". Did anyone see that movie, starring Robert DeNiro? It will be interesting to see how these two (billy and twyla) combine such a gritty theme into a musical format!

From the Los Angeles Times:<P><B>His Songs, Her Call<BR>Twyla Tharp and Billy Joel are an unlikely pair with a project to match: She's creating a show from his tunes.</B><P>By CHRIS JONES<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>NEW YORK--In the summer of '75, Brenda and Eddie, king and queen of the Parkway Diner, were still going steady, unaware that deep-pile carpet and a couple of paintings from Sears would not stem their inevitable fall. In the spring of '02, Twyla and Billy, shooting to be the king and queen of a Broadway fall, did not look much like they would be sharing a bottle of white or a bottle of red any time soon.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR><A HREF="http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Theater-X!ArticleDetail-64290,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>MORE...</B></A><BR>

From the Chicago Tribune:<P><B>Dance review, 'Movin' Out' at Shubert Theatre</B><P>By Sid Smith<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>A hallmark of Twyla Tharp's genius is her ability to inject hints of theater into her short works: the vaudeville of "Push Comes to Shove," for instance, or the abstract drama of "The Fugue." Conversely, a drag on her career has been her efforts to marry theater and dance. "The Bum's Rush" was her most notorious flop, while with American Ballet Theatre. <BR>While flush with many of the foibles that inherently plague the full-length dance-theater effort, "Movin' Out," to the songs of Billy Joel, is nonetheless Tharp's personal best in this crusade so far.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><BR><A HREF="http://metromix.com/top/1,1419,M-Metromix-CriticsReviews-X!ArticleDetail-17578,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>MORE...</B></A> <BR>

From the Los Angeles Times:<P><B>In Chaotic 'Movin' Out,' Dancing Off to the Vietnam War<BR>The frenetic collaboration from Twyla Tharp and Billy Joel, prepping in Chicago before Broadway, shows promise, aside from an ill-conceived first act.</B><P>By MICHAEL PHILLIPS, Chicago Tribune<P><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>CHICAGO--If Oliver Stone did a Broadway dance musical--and truly, that's not a suggestion--it might come out like the more risible passages of "Movin' Out," the Twyla Tharp/Billy Joel collaboration that opened its Shubert Theatre pre-Broadway tryout Friday after several weeks of previews. It is a strenuous, chaotic, occasionally exhilarating dance-play, in which America's war in Vietnam gets blue-bagged for one more pop-cultural recycling. <BR> "Don't worry, the second act's better--much better," said the waitress working the sidewalk tables at the Grillroom, across the street from the Shubert, during Friday's intermission. She was reassuring a couple of Playbill-wielding "Movin' Out" first-nighters. And she was right; it is. Yet with a first act so pile-driving and ill-conceived, the question remains: Is "better" better enough? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><BR><A HREF="http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Theater-X!ArticleDetail-66781,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>MORE...</B></A>

This sounds like vintage Twyla....populist, vernacular, sassy and dense with movement. I thought Twyla's "Deuce Coupe" to the music of the Beach Boys was a masterpiece. Has anyone seen this, or plans on seeing it?

NEW YORK (AP) - Twyla Tharp has always had an iconoclast's relationship with music. She has paired ballet with the Beach Boys and modern dance with Thelonious Monk, and has even staged her dances to silence.

But for her latest work, the choreographer turned to good old rock 'n' roll, picking the quintessential Long Island boy-turned-rocker: Billy Joel.

Part ballet, part rock concert, part theater, "Movin' Out" tells the tale - through dance and 28 Joel songs - of five friends growing up in suburbia under the shadow of the Vietnam War.

Tharp has an agenda: Lure them to Broadway with Billy, but wow them with the dance.

The cast boasts some of the brightest stars in dance: Ashley Tuttle, John Selya and Keith Roberts, who danced with the American Ballet Theatre; Elizabeth Parkinson, a former Joffrey Ballet principal; and Benjamin G. Bowman, who spent seven years with the New York City Ballet.

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